WoW im so confused, i have no idea what to do now. let me get this straight, i am probiley wrong so somone jump in and correct me before i destroy my control arms. 1. i am going to use s10 upper ball joints and hog out the hole and re drill to make them fit in the stock location

2. order the lower sleeve and move it in 1/4" weld it up install s10 lower balljoint

3. bolt on s10 stuff and ride off into the sunset

does this sound right? remeber im just a simple hillbilly, so talk slowley

Clyde, yes you can. These mods are for using the larger, more available S10 ball joints.Now all you have to do is remove the lower control arms again and cut and reweld the spring pocket to make it a deep pocket arm in in the early body style. Mark

How did you guys cut out the lower ball-joint hole (when using the sleeve which is ~2 3/8"). I'm in the process and all i can think of using a hole-saw on a drill press with a wooden filler plug in the old ball-joint hole (for the guide screw, or i could remove the guide screw but im not sure if it would stay centered).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Edit: Also when the upper ball-joints get installed do they mount under the table or pass through the table?

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[quote="jb77n"]I have the control arms out of my car now and am seriously considering the S10 ball joints for my car.

I'd love to see an answer to BadBowtie's question of how did you guys cut out the holes? What did you use?

Thanks,[/quote]

Since my last post I did the conversion, for the lowers I used a hole saw on a drill press, lots of lube and tried to be as precise as possible. For the uppers I used a small grinding bit on a high speed drill. My conversion turned out pretty good.

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I got a set of lower ball joints and sleeves. Already cut a hole in the control arms. Now which way do the sleeves get welded in? "It looks like there is the smallest of tapers in one end of the sleeve and I sure don't want to weld them in wrong."

Never mind, I checked them with the calipers and there is no taper at all. Going to weld them in as close to flush on the spindle side as I can and call it good.

When I had my buddy, who is a veteran welder install my UB lower sleeves, I had him leave the shallowest side protruding just a little, to allow for two full 360 degree weld fillets, one on each side. By doing this I was more confident regarding the integrity of the weld. Just a thought.

I'm just getting started on my first Vega build and I get the whole S-10 spindle replacement idea but, the devil's in the details as they say. If I go this route, do I need s-10 upper and lower control arms? If anybody could give me "S-10 front suspenion swap 101" or steer me to an article on it I would really appreciate it. I'll be turning to you guys for a lot. won't mean to bug.ThanksSB

[quote="SB Vega"] I'm just getting started on my first Vega build and I get the whole S-10 spindle replacement idea but, the devil's in the details as they say. If I go this route, do I need s-10 upper and lower control arms? If anybody could give me "S-10 front suspenion swap 101" or steer me to an article on it I would really appreciate it. I'll be turning to you guys for a lot. won't mean to bug.ThanksSB [/quote]

This article was made by someone on the forum and shows exactly how to do the swap

I doubt you'll be bugging us, there is no better forum for H-body related information let alone the wealth of information these members know!

Have fun with the s10 swap.

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The way I opened up my lower control arms (LCA) was to first scribe the outside diameter of the new UB sleeve onto the control arm in the correct location. I then used a new 3/16" diameter drill bit, I drilled many holes, very close to each other, all the way around the scribed hole. Of course the holes were drilled on the INSIDE of the scribed line. Then using a freshly sharpened chisel ,I set a block of wood in the area to be chiseled out (bottom of the control arm). The wooden block was used as a backup for when I chiseled through the small area between each drilled hole. NOTE: I did not distort the control arm at all using the chiseling method. This may sound very labor intensive, but it is really easy to do. Once the old pieces fell out I used a Dremel tool with a small cutoff wheel to carefully remove all of the remaining sharp pointed edges. I ground just up to the inside of my scribed lines, I could still see the line. At this point I started to trial fit the UB sleeve into the LCA. By looking closely, I was able to see the area that was keeping the new sleeve from tightly slipping into the control arm. I carefully ground out a small amount of metal until I could lightly slip fit the sleeve in place with a small ball peen hammer.

I worked with the tools I had available at home. I know there are easier ways to accomplish this job, but when the tools are not there you make do with what you have. Each control arm took slightly less than an hour to rework from start to finish (welding time not included in this time).